Disbelief!

I can't believe my time here is so quickly coming to a close!!! It's a happy and a sad feeling-- I'm excited to go home and see my family and my friends, but I'm not very excited to leave my family and friends here, let alone go back to school...I already liked the country after coming two years ago for a week, but after almost two months here?? I love the people, the food, the language, the culture-- time has flown by so incredibly fast. I really can't believe it.

Pictures from my most recent escapades

Another random post full of pictures from the last two weeks (and earlier)...

The following two pictures are from the day I went with the group of missionaries from Lancaster, PA to Apopa to hold a medical clinic (July 5th, I think)-- this is "El Comedor," a kind of cafeteria that the Baptist pastor (of the church where we held the medical clinic) feeds lunch to local children almost every day. Gracia told me this is probably the best meal that the kids will have during the day and maybe even the only one. The kids' ages varied, ranging from toddlers to adolescents. 

Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures at the clinic, so these few from El Comedor are all I have from that day.

Coloring and learning about Noah's ark: Paola y Valeria

 Skirt Sunday with Paty! (July 10th)

The next few pictures are from an afternoon excursion to Santa Ana (July 11th) with Gracia and Co. We visited the National Theatre (over 100 years old, the oldest in El Salvador I believe), the Cathedral of Santa Ana, and attempted to eat at La Torta Loca, but it wasn't open on Mondays. More or less translated to "the crazy sandwich," this restaurant is known for its huuuge sandwiches with "everything" in them. I'm sad I didn't get to try one.

Teatro Nacional de Santa Ana-- there was a group rehearsing on stage, so it was a little weird walking around. Picture taken from the 3rd floor balcony.

A ballroom of sorts, I think. View from the floor facing inwards towards the theatre.

View of same room from above and facing front of the church.

 View from 3rd floor of Teatro Nacional of surrounding city and mountains-- beautiful.

 Another rooftop view of Santa Ana

Inside the Catedral de Santa Ana

 Front facade of the cathedral-- I couldn't get the entire front in one picture, so this is the top half.

Bottom half

This past Sunday, I went to the beach with Paty, Dome, Brenda, Carol (their sister-in-law), Raquelita (Carol's daughter/Paty's granddaughter/Dome and Brenda's niece) and Charlie, a family friend (Dome and Brenda grew up with him and call him their cousin). We went to a beach called "El Tunco" (another word for "pig") and enjoyed a lunch of seafood and an afternoon spent next to the water. The sand was black (I'm still finding granules in my ears)-- I suppose it's from the volcanic activity in El Salvador-- and there were surfers! First time to legitimately see some in real life-- it looked like fun! But perhaps, a little difficult. :)

 Eating oysters for the first time-- delicious!

Roca Sunzal-- a restaurant/hotel for surfers, tourists, and the like. This is the restaurant right on the shore!

 The hotel behind the restaurant 

 El Tunco-- the rock for which the beach is named-- apparently, a long time ago, it used to be shaped like a pig. This picture doesn't really do it justice-- it's a lot bigger than it looks. People can climb to the top of it and jump off into the rocks below (the part to the right), or sit on the little cliff for a scenic view to the far left.

 La playa

This past Wednesday, the kids came to school dressed up as "princesas y guerreros" (princesses and warriors). It was the first time I'd ever seen the kids out of their normal tan uniforms which was a little bit weird. The majority of the girls came dressed in their Sunday best and the boys more or less wore t-shirts from their favorite super heroes or movie characters-- Cars, Iron Man, and Spiderman were all represented. Jorge (not pictured in these few photos) came sporting a Messi Barcelona jersey, a player/team which for many people here is equivalent to superhero status. 

 Fiorella

 Belén ("Bethlehem" in Spanish)

 David

Yesterday, I visited the recently finished Mormon Tabernacle in San Salvador-- a very interesting and enlightening visit concerning the beliefs and practices of the Mormon church. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but let me just say that it was definitely built with luxury in mind. The "templo" closes to the public after the 23rd and after that, only "really good" Mormons get to go in (or so I hear). Note the characteristic dark skies of a Salvadoran afternoon thunderstorm.

Templo de Mormon

And that's a wrap for pictures! I hope to post again soon-- it's weird to think that my time here is winding down fast-- I come back to the states on the 3rd of August! Hope you enjoy the pictures!

La dentista

Yesterday I paid a visit to a dentist to have my teeth cleaned-- it's been more than a year since I last had a cleaning, and its waaaayyy cheaper to get in done in El Salvador than in the States (a measly $30 compared to prices around $100) So. It made sense to do it in El Salvador! Plus, the dentist is a friend of the family here and I've met him a couple of different times at church functions. His name is Cesar, but everyone calls him "el pelón" which means "bald." Anyway, it was a very productive appointment (funny at times as well-- I don't know a whole lot of vocabulary that has to do with dentist visits, but I learned some new words) and my teeth are all clean!

One little interesting observation about my visit-- the dentist office was at his house! He has his own little space that includes a waiting area and the actual room with all the equipment; and it's just him there. There's no dental assistants, no secretary, no other dentist sharing the building. Dome told me that it's quite common here, but there dentists who have their practices located in office buildings as well as are bigger "clinics" with several dentists in the same building, but they're usually more expensive.

Tonight was Walter's (Brenda and Dome's brother, Paty's son) birthday so I just got back from his birthday dinner at Sushi Itto-- I was very upset when my bill came bc it turns out that I was charged $6 for my drink, only $.50 less than my actual sushi! Apparently, my drink was a "double"-- I have no recollection of the waitress asking me anything of the kind, and if she did I didn't understand her. Que barbaridad.

Before the birthday dinner, I spend the majority of my day doing a lot of laundry and just chilling. It's been raining pretty hard outside for the past couple of hours. It'll make a nice background noise for going to sleep.

Sunburns

So, I spent part of yesterday and today at the beach...and I'm very very red, even though I put on sunscreen. I guess I was just too white...the burn was inevitable I suppose.

 When I was last in El Salvador around two and a half years ago, I went to a beach that was littered with volcanic like rocks; I had a terrible day of running into and stepping on prickly sharp rocks that were covered by the murky water, I lost a James Avery ring to the ocean's tide, and I got beat up a little bit by the waves. But this time, my experience was much more enjoyable! The beach resort I went to is called "El Decameron," and though the beach was rocky (again!), the resort and pool area were very nice.Thank you to Gracia for the invite!

A little bit of this, a little bit of that

So, I haven't uploaded any pictures in a little while. So, that's what I figured I'd do with this post.

These first few pictures are looooonnnnng overdue. They're from June 25th, the day I went to Izalco with Gracia and her family.

 Foosball game with Gracia...and I'm very proud to say that the gringa beat the latina.  This is the winner's score. (That would be me.)

Poor little salvadoreña.

 Iglesia de Izalco.

I orginally wasn't going to take a picture because I didn't want to look like a tourist, and I said so to Gracia. She just looked at me and said, "Natalie. You already look like a tourist without your camera out. You might as well. Go across the street and take the picture." So I did.

View down the main street with my back to the front of the church

The next day, I went to the opening service of the CEFAD branch in Sonsonate. None of the pictures really turned out very good, but I'm uploading some anyway. Just for you.

The service

The skit. And yes, that's me in the white and blue.

In the kid's service after the "parting of the Red Sea" in the kid's skit.

All the helpers with the kids at the end-- Silly faces!

This is from the following weekend (July 2nd, I believe.) Instead of handing grades out to kids at school once the 6 or 9 weeks period ends, at my school, they had a little performance and then a kind of awards ceremony, and then the teacher hands all the parents their children's grades. The K-5 classes demonstrated their knowledge of English and sang a vowel song and Jesus Loves Me. These are my kids. :)

And now for a few school pictures. The kids love it when I pull out the camera.

Some of my little girls: Karina, Arianna, Daniela, and Valeria

This is Camila-- she always seems to be glued to my side or remind me that her first name is "Nathalie"

Ana Fiorella, Daniela, Jorge, Carlos, Belen, and Arianna...of course, Jorgito is making a face.

Marlon and Enrique. Typical. 

I know I didn't say a lot in this post, but it honestly has taken a long time to write it bc of all the pictures. (It takes forever to upload pics on this blog!) I do have more pictures/stories that I could write about, but I'm going to forgo that until tomorrow (or perhaps Thursday). It's a little late for me. Goodnight!

Family love

In about ten minutes, it's going to be tomorrow for me, and that means it's July 10th-- a very ordinary day for most people, but for my family, it is anything but ordinary. Why? Because it's my mom's birthday! Happy early birthday momma!! Miss you! Hope I get to talk to you tomorrow!

I really appreciate my family so much. They have been so supportive while I've been here these past 5 weeks, always checking up on me to see how I'm doing or when I get to come home already (*cough cough...Nate!) and just sending me their love, encouragement and prayers. I am so incredibly grateful for every single family member, (including Hudson!) and I miss everyone so much!! I love all of you and look forward to seeing you soon. Happy birthday mom!!

...not keeping up with mi trabajo

To all my faithful readers (Mom, Dad, Nate and Amelia)-- I'm terribly sorry that I haven't posted here in a week. Life just gets busy, and I admit that sometimes I just don't want to write. But then I remember all of my loving family/friends at home and remember my purpose for writing in the first place.

So, the week's been a little different than normal. Really Tuesday was different. I didn't go to CEFAS that day and instead went with a group of American missionaries to Apopa. How do I know these people? Well, I didn't. Gracia translates with a NGO that accepts American teams sometimes though, and she invited me to go with her. It was a very interesting and fun experience, especially not being on the missions team but rather an outsider who could still speak the team's language. I'm so used to how ORU does missions. I really enjoyed being able to communicate with both the team and Salvadoreans. The team hailed from Lancaster, PA, and I think some of the conservative lifestyle of the Amish infiltrated this teams' lifestyle in the states (and therefore their actions here). But, we worked in a medical clinic pretty much all day in Apopa, an area that is not only poor, but quite dangerous due to gang violence, and I worked mostly with deworming kids. All this involves really is getting the kids to open their mouths and take this nasty looking white medicine (it brought back bad memories from childhood sicknesses)-- they never failed to either spit it out or at least make a "this is disgusting" face, but we gave them a sucker afterwards. All better. Just like the doctor's office.

Tomorrow is Gracia's birthday, so I'm going out to eat with her and her friends tonight. It should be fun-- loud and lots of Spanish!